Sometimes songs take me backwards or forwards and fill my head with thoughts and ideas about the places and people I have seen or yet to see.
After years of living on my own it is easy for me to forget to answer with more than a few words, a gesture and a grunt. Not everyone has enough insight to see what seems obvious to me and I rarely have the inclination to provide much in the way of details.
You need to know as much as I have shared and if you press you might not appreciate all that comes with it. Open Pandora’s Box and you have to be prepared to handle the consequences.
Consequences is another one of those funny words where people jump because they assume it has a negative connotation but it doesn’t have to be so. It can be very different.
For example take this piece of fiction I wrote six years ago that I have shared below. When it first ran it generated a thousand questions that I hadn’t anticipated because it was just something I wrote for fun.
I had no intention of stirring things up, yet I did. That is ok, I lived with it then and I can live with whatever comes now.
But I am reminded of the importance of asking myself if I want to answer or ask certain questions because you can’t go back. Once the words escape they are free and you cannot control how people respond.
The music is strictly for writing and reading. The fragment isn’t based upon the movie.
The walls between us are cracking and the distance we created is shrinking but I don’t know if either of us likes it or wants it that way.
There is a part that does, for certain because distance makes it easier to forget and so we turn to anger. Anger makes it easy.
Lists of things we did to upset each other and little flaws help shore up resolve and maintain the walls we use to protect ourselves. We fight and we push, yell about how we don’t trust and call each other names we don’t really mean.
But the truth is there is something there, a thing we haven’t ever been able to describe or explain. It is a timeless moment that defines us.
A never ending kiss and a desire to hold each other again. A chance to look, to listen and to love.
The hardest question is not about whether the magic is gone but whether we dare to take the chance to see if we can walk the golden path…together.
In silence we ask if the fear inside is based upon reality and not want.
When was the last time we felt accepted, loved and wanted for all of who we are.
When was the last time we took joy in just being in the presence of another knowing they knew us better than any other and that it was ok to just be.
When was the last time we trusted them completely to hold our heart and caress our soul.
When was the last time we knew we were cherished and held up as the model for all other relationships.
It feels like a million years ago in a place that never was during a dream we never had about a moment that never existed yet this thing calls out from wherever it is we have stuffed it down to protect ourselves from it.
This thing calls out and demands recognition and asks for us to do more than just pretend.
It begs for honesty and for truth.
It offers hope and understanding.
The question is will we have the courage to walk across the bridge and open the door.
Will we take the chance to remove the veil and see what lies in the mirror. Will we gaze upon a reflection that pleases or scares us.
Some people never know the moment.
Some people know the moment and lose it never to capture it again.
Some who lose it seek second chances because that is what has to be done.
And some just sit in silence and none can say what it is they think upon, about or remember.
Heart and soul is more than just a man or just a woman.
For a man who is as unfiltered and off the cuff as I am it is a strange moment when I feel the need to be precise in my words because I am concerned that I not be misunderstood.
But it happens when things are professional or important to me personally and I am determined to be heard the way I want to be heard.
Not long ago I was asked for an explanation of behavior and ideas and spent time mulling over whether to answer the question.
I almost responded with “do you really want to know” but hesitated not because I feared to respond but because text is tough on understanding and interpretation.
It is easy for people to mistake sincerity for sarcasm and vice versa.
As it happens I have about 25,000 words of blog posts that address the topic from a variety of directions and angles so I considered whether I ought to use those.
Thought about whether I ought to include some music and considered whether it ought to be of a classical bent or actual classic.
Midway into it I remembered a story a female friend told me about a date she went on years ago where the guy presented her with a mix tape. She appreciated the idea but said he killed things because three of the songs were tunes she and her prior boyfriend used for intimacy.
“Dude, I wanted to say thank you, but when I saw those songs all I could think of was him and I hated him. The association killed it.”
Then I thought about it some more and remembered that story is about 25 years old and I don’t wear sweaters because other people are cold.
Fuck it, I’ll add my own music if I choose to use those 25,000 words, but only if I choose to answer. It is a Friday night and who wants to be asked to think on a Friday night.
Right?
Hint, that is not really a question.
I am going to do what I am going to do and roll with it because life is ever more interesting that way.
And there my friends is a post that I have stopped and started writing a dozen times. Maybe that made it better, maybe it made it worse.
Hard to say, but it is definitely authentic in a blogging while distracted on a Friday night kind of way.
